Another blast of Arctic air was roaring across the Midwest on Friday on its way to the eastern United States, where snow was already falling in New York and other areas, some schools were canceled and officials warned of dangerous driving conditions.
The forecast called for up to six inches of snow for an area from Baltimore to central New Jersey, and up to eight inches in parts of the Philadelphia area. A foot of snow could fall in the mountainous regions of the Central Appalachians and along the eastern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, forecasters said. Elsewhere, a few inches of snow was forecast from Kentucky to Vermont.
Officials warned that snow and plunging temperatures were making roads dangerous. Officials from Indiana to Tennessee reported that trucks were sliding off icy highways and bridges. The governor of Tennessee closed state offices on Friday, citing the hazardous travel conditions. Kentucky’s governor closed all executive branch state office buildings. In Huntsville, Ala., where the roads have been coated in ice and slush this week, the police said they had responded since Monday to nearly 200 car accidents, 37 of which involved injuries.
“Don’t just get out to go sightseeing,” the Huntsville police chief, Kirk Giles, said at a news conference with city officials on Friday. “Please stay off the road because we have a strain now on emergency public services.”
Slippery conditions, particularly in the evening, were expected in New York, which ended a snow drought this week and will again receive more than an inch from this latest storm.
The snowy weather has already caused some travel disruptions. An American Airlines plane from Philadelphia slid off a taxiway at the airport in Rochester, N.Y., on Thursday afternoon. No injuries were reported, American Airlines said in a statement, blaming the episode on “snowy airfield conditions.”
In New York, obliging football fans were asked to help shovel snow off the seats of Highmark Stadium, near Buffalo, before an N.F.L. playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
Warming centers will be open for residents in Chicago this winter when temperatures drop below 32 degrees, officials said.
High temperatures across the Plains and down into the South will be 20 to 25 degrees below normal on Friday. While not as cold as the Arctic outbreak earlier in the week, it will still be colder than many people in those areas are accustomed to. The cold will persist in the Plains and the South on Saturday and move east, with temperatures dropping below average up and down the East Coast.
On Sunday, temperatures will begin moderating across the country. By the middle of next week, most of the United States will be near or above average, with most major cities across the country seeing high temperatures back above freezing.
John Keefe contributed reporting.
